xero - xl (626kb) Includes: Bad Dream 3.0, Caravaggio 3.0, Nostalgia 3.0, Porcelain 3.0, Soft Mood 3

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Softmood

This filter can do nice things with portraits, but it can also be quite effective
on landscapes and other images. As always, the final result depends on the starting
point - for some images the result is great, for others it's awful.

	For variety, we'll bring in Ms Christina Aguilera at this point. This image is quite high-key, with a light and fairly flat look.
	The 'SoftMood' filter has two sliders, 'Haziness' and 'Glow'. The 'Haziness' slider sets the radius of the blur that's used in the algorithm; low values give a darker, more intense look, while higher settings are softer and flatter. The 'Glow' slider lets you raise the brightness; at low settings the finished image will be darker than the original.
	This is what the default settings do to Christina; the image has a softer, warmer, more intimate feel.
	Ok, time to bring back Sophie. Not all images work well over the full gamut of 'Glow' settings - this one does, and that's my excuse for returning to it.
	Setting 'Glow' to a low value gives a low-key, atmospheric feel.
	At the other extreme, we can get a much lighter high-key effect.

Porcelain

The xero : porcelain filter gives an effect that is hard to describe, but which
reminds me of painted porcelain. The effect doesn't show up particularly well on the thumbnails,
so you may wish to click them to see the larger versions.

The subject here is our local church, St Andrew's, in Congresbury, Somerset. I've photographed the church many times, but this is the first time that I've managed to get a decent result! Most attempts have been spoiled by washed-out, or bright but heavily overcast skies, which cause my Olympus C-130L compact to under-expose for the church and foreground. This time, everything went well, however. I've already used PSP's 'Clarify' filter to clean up the image a little.

The porcelain filter has three sliders: the 'Softness' and 'Strength' sliders work together to control the overall effect, while the 'Brightness' filter is there for convenience - the algorithm used tends to darken the image, so just a little increase in brightness is often useful.

This filter can be quite slow at extreme settings. However, this is the effect we get with the settings shown above. Click the thumbnail for a better view, since it doesn't show up particularly well at this size.

Nostalgia

This plugin gives a result that reminds me of a hand-tinted monochrome photograph or, perhaps, the kind
of cheaply-produced and gaudily-coloured magazine covers that I used to see as a child; it was that
"childhood" connection that led me to call the plugin "Nostalgia", of course.

The plugin selectively desaturates the image, but also gives a subtle change in hues. The end result is
that some parts of the image become monochrome, while others take on a sort of unrealistic-looking
colouration. It's hard to describe, so you'll need to try it to appreciate properly what I'm talking
about.

Saturation & Balance	These two sliders work together to control the colouration of the image. The Saturation slider has the most dramatic overall effect, while the effect of the Balance slider is more subtle. Actually, if you experiment you'll find that a high saturation and low balance give a result that initially looks very similar to low saturation and high balance. There will be a subtle difference in the image's colour balance, however.
Flourescence	This slider controls the "realism" of the colours. At minimum, the image will be mostly monochrome; at maximum, the coloured areas will be very unrealistic.
Grain	The Grain slider adds some grain to the image, with a bias toward the desaturated areas. Use this to increase the "cheap magazine cover" feel with the more vibrantly-coloured images. With more subtle colourations, add just a little grain for an "arty" result.
Mono contrast	Use this slider to increase the contrast in the less saturated areas...
Colour contrast	...and this one to separately control contrast in the more saturated areas. It may seem odd to separate the contrast sliders like this, but you can get some quite dramatically different results!

	This snapshot of Jack was taken immediately after he'd completed the school's annual "fun-run".
	The default settings give this result. The greens are almost completely desaturated, and the flesh-tones take on a more delicate colouration.
	Same image - but with a little more flourescence and some added grain. You'll need to click the thumbnail to see the full-size image to see the grain properly.
	This is Postbridge, on Dartmoor, in Devonshire, England. Note the brightly coloured flowers - a foxglove and... um, a yellow one which may or may not be gorse.
	Saturation and balance at default, but flourescence at maximum. Again, the greens are almost completely desaturated, but the brightly-coloured flowers keep most of their colour. The flesh-tones of the people on the bridge have a distinctly unrealistic look...
	Increase the colouration a little, and move both contrast sliders to the mid-point for this badly-printed 1958 magazine-cover look. Ahh... nostalgia isn't what it used to

Caravaggio

Sometimes, my life seems to be little more than a never-ending quest for the ultimate painting effect plugin.
Perhaps it would be easier if I simply gave up and learned to paint properly, instead of wasting hours trying
to persuade the computer to do it for me. Sadly, though, I'm one of those people who has a passion for the
graphic arts and a deep creative urge, but without any actual talent to back it up. I suppose I'll just have
to keep writing plugins instead.

This one is a simple 'oil-painting' effect, with just four sliders; in a misguided effort to express my latent
artistic impulses, I've given them whimsical names... think of them as defining the personality of your own
personal virtual artist. It was this kind of thinking, I suppose, that led me to name the plugin in honour of
the enigmatic Italian renaissance artist Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio - which was rather pretentious of
me, really. If he phones me and complains, I'll change the name.

Creativity	Well, I could have labelled this one "primary convolution kernel radius" I suppose, but it probably wouldn't have fitted onto the dialog. The image tends to become more impressionistic as you move this slider to the right.
Exuberance	Increased 'exuberance' - in this context, at least - means a larger brush with increasingly wayward strokes. It may help to know that I originally planned to call this slider 'carelessness'!
Attentiveness	Move this slider to the right to bring back a little sanity - the virtual artist will take more care over edges, and the final image will make more sense. Tip: use this on portraits to help preserve those all-important catchlights in the eyes.
Moodswing	Move left if the artist is in a depressive phase, or right if he's manic. Try it, and you'll see what I mean... Note: this slider works with the 'Attentiveness' slider - if 'Attentiveness' is set to zero, then 'Moodswing' will have no effect.

	For a classic painting effect, there can be no better choice of model than the classically-beautiful Ms Sophie Marceau, who appears here in a suitably classical-looking pose. The effect with the default settings is reasonably subtle...
	Increasing the 'Creativity' gives a more 'painterly' effect.
	Increasing the 'Exuberance' gives a more energetic, broad-brush feel.
	Finally, using lots of creativity, plenty of exuberance, enough attentiveness to stay within hailing distance of reality, and a touch of up-beat moodswing, we get this. It's a bit of a mess, frankly. But just imagine all the carpet-cleaning you'd have had to do if you'd painted it for real.

Bad Dream

This filter is great if you like really icky, yucky colourations. It gives the kind
of revolting colour-casts that you would normally spend hours trying to correct; it
also gives a soft, misty effect though, and the final result can be quite pleasing
on the right kind of image.

	This is my younger son Jack, trying his best to look patriotic at our village street-party to celebrate the Queen's Silver Jubilee last year.
	The filter has two sliders and a set of radio buttons. The 'Softness' slider controls the 'mistiness', while the 'Strength' slider controls the overall intensity of the effect. The radio buttons control the colouration that's applied. Note that, despite the names of the buttons, the resulting colouration will depend heavily upon the content of the image used. In other words, selecting the 'Red' button won't always give a red colouration. Strange but true.
	Both sliders were set around the 75% level, and the 'Blue' colouration button selected. This was the result.
	Even stranger, more nightmarish effects can be had by applying the filter twice, with different colour channels selected. Time for that horse to make a re-appearance...
	The result is, well... definitely bordering on the surreal. I'm tempted to make a silly joke about night-mares at this point, but I know nothing about horses and this